For a first anniversary, the traditional gift is paper and the modern gift is a clock. Julius Dunn and his Adversity program received both, as The One Club handed him a pink slip and announced his time was up.
An official insisted the program is not going away; rather, the partnership between The One Club and Adversity has ended for financial reasons. Apparently, any long-term commitment plan was written with a Gold Pencil. The One Club website has erased all evidence of Adversity, replacing it with the following:
The One Club is extending its outreach to provide college students and young professionals of diverse backgrounds an opportunity to learn first hand about the creative side of advertising, new media and design. Through workshops, presentations and exhibitions, The One Club is working to diversify the advertising industry.
First, The One Club should hire an award-winning proofreader, as firsthand is a single word. Second, how does The One Club intend to extend its outreach efforts while cutting its lead diversity initiative? Guess you need to be a Gold Pencil winner to figure out a creative answer. Third, “The One Club is working to diversify the advertising industry,” sounds remarkably like, “O.J. Simpson is hunting for Nicole’s killer.” There’s a certain insincerity here, especially given that the award organization’s historical lack of interest in minorities might warrant a name change to The One Old Boys Club. And Adversity could be renamed The One-Year Club.
What’s the most unfortunate part of this affair? The only source to bother reporting on Adversity’s demise was the ever-useless Agency Spy blog. That’s the equivalent of having your obituary run in a high school newspaper.
Anyway, good luck to Julius Dunn and the other staffers who lost their jobs. Welcome to the advertising industry.
“The One Club is working to diversify the advertising industry,” sounds remarkably like, “O.J. Simpson is hunting for Nicole’s killer.”
ReplyDeleteHaa-haa, you slay me. Great analogy.
Julius, he's young but I trust this hit him harder than a ton of bricks. Watching the same people smile with him at the 1 year anniversary party, turn around two weeks later and pull the rug from underneath him is as low as it gets. The worst thing about this was they probably knew they were gonna cut the program way back, but hyped this little guy up make him think hes a big, let him get a little shine in and then catch him with a little pink slip. The oneclub is loaded with cash, they could save the program if they wanted to but hey its their money. Sticking true to the formula, whites will fund a diversity program, use minorities as the figure heads, and wait 2 or 3 years then pull the plug, and then blame blacks as to why theres no diversity in advertising. And then start the whole process over again 5 years later.
ReplyDeleteWhat a sucker, he actually thought the oneclub cared about him. Nor do they care about the minority youth that he tried to introduce advertising too. What a waste of time.
ReplyDeleteThis is the same guy that ignored harry webber on adage when he tried to speak some sense into him. I hope he's learned his lesson the same people that ride along with you that call themselves diversity people are not that. In fact the mosiac, 4a's, adcolor, and most of these other organizations are meaningless, and their set up for failure. What have then done to reverse discrimination in advertising, but these organizations will accept petty donations from these same agencies that discriminate. So at the end of the day, im guessing a lot of white execs at their agencies are laughing their asses off behind closed doors, saying look at the house Negroes. We can manipulate them and they still dont have a clue/